Bob Albrecht is Chancellor Emeritus of Western Governors University and a Senior Fellow at the EDUCAUSE Center for Academic Research (ECAR). He served on the faculty at the University of Chicago and at the University of Oregon. After holding positions of Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Vice Provost at Oregon, he became the Academic Vice President at the University of Northern Colorado and Deputy Commissioner for Academic Affairs in the Montana University System. He returned to the State of Colorado to become an Associate Vice President at the University of Colorado until he was asked to initiate the Western Governors University. He served in a senior capacity in that new institution becoming Chancellor before he retired.

He has served on advisory committees to Harvard University, the U.S. Army, IBM and Regis University. He spent many years consulting to the Advanced Placement Program and the National Teachers Examination Program with ETS. He chaired the Oregon Committee on the Humanities and worked on many liaison committees in the state systems of Oregon, Montana and Colorado.

Early in his career Dr. Albrecht became involved with outreach programs both as a faculty member and an administrator. Extension, community outreach, and distance learning became more central to his portfolio as he participated in formulating state networks, in leading developments in learning technology and on line learning. This work included a leadership role on the Steering Committee of the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications.

Recent publications have included chapters on distance learning and information technology as well as articles on university administration. Conference presentations and discussions have focussed on distributed learning and information technology.

Bob continues to live in Denver, consulting and writing when he's not traveling or hiking, skiing or snowshoeing in the Colorado mountains.

George Connick is the founder and President Emeritus of the Education Network of Maine, the statewide distance learning network of the University of Maine System. During his 31-year association with the University of Maine System, George held various faculty and administrative positions, including appointment as Associate Professor of History, two years as Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Southern Maine, nine years as the president of the University of Maine at Augusta, and three years as president of the Education Network of Maine. George took early retirement from the University System in 1997.

Dr. Connick has delivered more than 300 presentations on the uses of technology and telecommunications for distance and distributed learning and he is the author of numerous articles and reports on a variety of educational topics. In 1990-91, Dr. Connick chaired the National Advisory Panel for the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress which produced the report titled Rural America at the Crossroads: Networking for the Future (1991). In 1999, he served as General Editor of a new book for learners from Prentice Hall titled The Distance Learner's Guide. He was the lead consultant on the planning and development of the Kentucky Commonwealth Virtual University (1997-99) and he has served as a consultant to more than 30 higher education institutions and systems in the United States and Canada on issues related to distance education.

In 1997, Dr. Connick was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by the College for Lifelong Learning of the University System of New Hampshire and in 2000 he was selected as the second inductee into the U.S. Distance Learning Association Hall of Fame.

Bob Heterick is a Fellow of the Center for Organizational and Technological Advancement at Virginia Tech and Visiting Research Professor at the Center for Academic Transformation at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is the former President and CEO of EDUCOM, a consortium of 600 higher education institutions and 100 Corporate Associates dedicated to transforming education through the use of information technology. Dr. Heterick is also Vice President Emeritus at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University where, in addition to his responsibilities for computing, telecommunications, and libraries, he spent over 30 years teaching and researching strategic planning for information technology.

Bob is the author of a dozen monographs and book chapters, over 80 journal articles, as well as research and consulting studies for universities, state and federal agencies, the National Academy of Sciences, and many of the major information technology and library organizations. His column in the Educom Review, The View From 16th Street,was frequently quoted in the trade press. Bob currently write a monthly column for The Learning Marketspace. He was the recipient of the 1994 CAUSE ELITE Award for lifetime achievement in information technology and in 1995 was named by Network Computingas one of the 50 network drivers in the United States.

He served for eight years on the Coalition for Networked Information Steering Committee, three terms on the OCLC Higher Education Professional Advisory Committee, the CAUSE Board of Directors as vice-chair and chair, the OCLC Research Advisory Committee, as a member of the Board of Directors of SoliNET, a library consortium for the southeastern United States.six years on the EDUCOM Board of Trustees, and as a member of advisory committees for IBM, NeXT, Apple, and Xerox.

He also contributes his time to a number of public service initiatives—among them serving as Chairman of the Board of the Blacksburg Electronic Village; a public/private partnership designed to bring the benefits of networking to rural southwest Virginia.

Dr. Carol A. Twigg is Executive Director of the Center for Academic Transformation at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The Center's mission is to serve as a source of expertise and support for those in higher education who wish to take advantage of the capabilities of information technology to transform their academic practices. The Center manages The Pew Learning and Technology Program, a $8.8-million, four-year effort sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts to place the national discussion about the impact of information technology on campus in the context of student learning and ways to achieve this learning cost-effectively. The Center also conducts The Leadership Forum, a series of activities designed to advance the growth of knowledgeable people to lead their institutions, companies and organizations in The Information Age.

From 1993 to 1998, Dr. Twigg served as Vice President of Educom, a nonprofit consortium of colleges, universities and other organizations dedicated to the transformation of higher education through the application of information technology. At Educom, she founded the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative (NLII), a coalition of 85 higher education institutions, public policy organizations, publishing companies, and digital industries. The NLII's purpose is to enable the transition from traditional time and placebound methods of education to new forms of distributed, student-centered, network-based teaching and learning modalities. She also initiated the IMS (Instructional Management Systems) project which is establishing interoperable standards for online education and training.

Dr. Twigg has published widely and given numerous presentations on such topics as the impact of telecommunications on restructuring higher education and training, the need to improve productivity in higher education, engaging college faculty in using instructional technology, and managing information technology in a distributed environment. She was named by Newsweek as one of the 50 most influential thinkers in the information revolution.

Before joining Educom in 1993, Dr. Twigg served as Associate Vice Chancellor for Learning Technologies for the State University of New York and Director of the Center for Learning and Technology. Prior to that, she served as Associate Vice President for Academic Programs and Information Technology at SUNY-Empire State College, SUNY's college without a campus, and was responsible for new program development, academic and administrative computing, and enrollment management. From 1977 to 1993, she served in a variety of academic administrative positions at Empire State College.

A graduate of the College of William and Mary, Dr. Twigg earned her Ph.D. in English Literature from the State University of New York at Buffalo; she has taught at SUNY/Buffalo, the State University College at Buffalo and Empire State College.